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scrimp

noun
/skɹɪmp/

Etymology

From Scots scrimp (“meager”), from Middle Dutch or Middle Low German schrimpen (“to shrivel up, wrinkle”), from Old Dutch *scrimpan, from Frankish *skrimpan, ultimately from Proto-Germanic *skrimpaną (“to shrink”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)ker- (“to cut off”), related to Old English sċrimman (“to shrink”) and sċrincan (“to shrivel up”). Doublet of shrink, shrimp, and shrim.

  1. derived from *(s)ker-✻ — “to cut off”
  2. derived from *skrimpaną✻ — “to shrink”
  3. derived from *skrimpan✻
  4. derived from *scrimpan✻
  5. derived from schrimpen — “to shrivel up, wrinkle”
  6. borrowed from scrimp — “meager”

Definitions

  1. A pinching miser

    A pinching miser; a niggard.

  2. To make too small or short

    To make too small or short; to shortchange.

    • to scrimp the pattern of a coat
    • The company scrimped on the design so badly that it ended up defective.

  3. To limit or straiten

    To limit or straiten; to put on short allowance.

    • For, as a general thing, the English merchant-ship scrimps her crew; but not so the English whaler.
    • There the Master scrimps his haggard sempstress of her daily bread, / There a single sordid attic holds the living and the dead.
  4. ›+ 2 more definitions

    1. To be frugal, whether to a reasonable and wise extent or to a miserly and unwise extent.

      • “Oh, Electra, jewel of women, darling of my heart, we are free at last, we roll in wealth, we need never scrimp again. It's a case for Veuve Cliquot!”
      • They had to scrimp each month to afford it out of pocket.

    2. Short

      Short; scanty; curtailed.

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for scrimp. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA